Full transcript of George Carlin’s “Dumb Americans,” excerpted from “Life is Worth Losing, his 13th live comedy stand-up special, performed at the Beacon Theatre in New York City for HBO
From Life Is Worth Losing
Recorded on November 5, 2005, Beacon Theater, New York City, New York
“It’s called the American dream because you have to be asleep to believe it”.
People are fucking nuts. This country is full of nitwits and assholes. Do you ever notice that? Oh, my goodness, yes. Oh, my goodness. Yeah. Nitwits, assholes, fuck ups, scumbags, jerk offs and dipshits. And they all vote. They all vote, yeah. In fact, sometimes you get the impression They’re the only ones who vote. You can usually tell who’s been doing the voting by looking at the fucking election returns. Man, it sure ain’t me out there wasting my time with a meaningless activity like that. You know those people on the “Jerry Springer Show”, those are the average Americans. Oh, yeah, believe me. Below average can’t get on the show. Can’t get on. Below average is sitting home watching that shit on TV, getting ready to out and vote, filling out their sample ballot. People are fucking dumb.
You can say what you want about this country, and I love this place. I love the freedoms we used to have. I love it. I love that. I love it when it didn’t take a fucking catastrophe to get us to care for one another. I love the fact that we’re on camera all the time from all angles. But, you know, you can say what you want about America. And I say I love this place. I wouldn’t have it any other way, wouldn’t live in any other time in history in any other place. But say what you want about America. Land of the free, home of the brave. We’ve got some dumb-ass motherfuckers floating around this country. Dumb-ass motherfuckers, you know. Now, obviously that doesn’t include this audience. I understand that. You seem intelligent and perceptive but the rest of them, holy jumping fucking shit balls. Dumber than a second coat of paint.
Now, this ain’t just ranting and raving. This ain’t just blowing off steam. I got a little evidence to support my claim. It just seems to me seems to me, that only a really low IQ population could have taken this beautiful continent, this magnificent American landscape that we inherited… Well, actually, we stole it from the Mexicans and the Indians but. Hey, it was nice when we stole it. It looked pretty good. It was pristine. Paradise. Have you seen it lately? Have you taken a good look at it lately? It’s fucking embarrassing.
Only a nation of unenlightened half-wits could have taken this beautiful place and turned it into what it is today, a shopping mall. A big, fucking shopping mall. You know that. That’s all you got. That’s all you got here, folks. Mile after mile of mall after mall. Many, many malls. Major malls and mini malls. They put the mini malls in between the major malls. And in between the mini malls they put the mini marts. And in between the mini marts. You’ve got the car lots, gas stations, muffler shops, Laundromats, cheap hotels, fast food joints, strip clubs and dirty bookstores. America the beautiful. One big transcontinental commercial cesspool.
And how do the people feel about all this? How do the people feel about living in a coast-to-coast shopping mall? Well, they think it’s JUST FUCKING DANDY! They think it is as cool as can be. Because Americans love the mall. They love the mall. That’s where they get to satisfy their two most prominent addictions at the same time. Shopping and eating. Millions of semiconscious Americans day after day shuffling through the malls shopping and eating. Especially eating. Americans love to eat. They are fatally attracted to the slow death of fast food. Hot dogs, corn dogs, triple bacon cheeseburgers, deep-fried butter dipped in pork fat and cheesewhiz, mayonnaise-soaked barbecue, mozzarella patty melts. America will eat anything. Anything. Anything. Shit,if you were selling sautéed raccoons assholes on a stick, Americans would buy them and eat them. Especially if you dipped them in butter and put a little salsa on them.
This country is big-time pig time. Forget the bald eagle. You know what the national emblem of this country ought to be? A big bowl of macaroni and cheese. A BIG BOWL. Because everything in this country is king size. King size, extra large and SUPER JUMBO. Especially the fucking people! Have you seen some of the people in this country? Have you taken a good look at some of these big, fat motherfuckers walking around? Big, fat motherfuckers. Oh, my God. Huge piles of redundant protoplasm lumbering through the malls like a fleet of interstate buses. The people in this country are immense. Massive bellies. Monstrous thighs and big, fat fucking asses. And if you stand there for a minute and you look at one of them, you’ll look at one of them and you begin to wonder, How does this woman take a shit? How does she shit? And even more frightening, How does she wipe her ass? Can she even locate her asshole? She must require assistance. Are paramedics trained in this field? And standing right next to her. Of course. With a plate full of nachos and a mouthful of pie is her clueless fucking husband Joe Six Pack. With his monstrous swollen beer belly hanging dangerously out over his belt buckle. This guy ain’t seen his dick since the Nixon administration. And if you stand there and you look at the two of them. You begin to wonder to yourself, Do these people fuck? Is this man actually capable of fucking this woman? It doesn’t seem structurally possible that these two people could achieve penetration. Maybe they’re in that “Cirque du Soleil” or something. I’m telling you the people in this country – every one of them – is 50 pounds overweight. They are GARGANTUAN.
And in the summertime – God help us – in the summertime they will all want to wear short pants. Jesus Lord, Protector of All That is Good and Holy, deliver us from fat people in short pants. They all got short pants, big bellies, fat thighs and dumb kids. Short pants, big bellies, fat thighs and dumb kids. Every one of them has got two dumbass kids with them. And the whole family is wearing T-shirts, and every one of them has got the same T-shirt… “I’m with stupid.” Apparently in this country, the Stupids are an extended family.
And besides wearing them T-shirts. Everyone in the family has got on a backpack. They got a backpack strapped to their back so they can carry around lots of stupid shit. And the reason they got to carry their stupid shit strapped to their backs is because their hands must remain free at all times to hold food. And to get that food up to the mouth where it gets shoveled in with all the rest of the disgusting shit they ate that day. And… Another reason for the backpacks is these people are going to buy even more stupid shit. They ain’t got enough stupid shit at home. They just had a stupid shit sale, they’re gonna buy more.
They’re going to go out in the parking lot and stuff this stuff into the big, fat, ugly, oversized SUV that’s got plenty of room in it. Plenty of room in it for stupid shit and lots of room left over for these big, fat, ugly motherfuckers to get them home. Stopping on the way, of course, for jelly roll and fried dough.
These people, these people are efficient, professional, compulsive consumers. It’s their civic duty. Consumption. It’s the new national pastime. Fuck baseball. It’s consumption. The only true lasting American value that’s left. Buying things. Buying things. People spending money they don’t have on things they don’t need. MONEY THEY DON’T HAVE ON THINGS THEY DON’T NEED. So they can max out their credit cards and spend the rest of their lives paying 18 percent interest on something that cost 12.50. And they didn’t like it when they got it home anyway! Not too bright, folks. Not too fucking bright.
But if you talk to one of them about this. If you isolate one of them, you sit them down rationally, and you talk to them about the low IQ’s and the dumb behavior and the bad decisions. Right away they start talking about education. That’s the big answer to everything. Education. They say “We need more money for education. We need more books. More teachers. More classrooms. More schools. We need more testing for the kids”. You say to them, “Well, you know, we’ve tried all of that and the kids still can’t pass the tests”. They say, “Don’t you worry about that. We’re going to lower the passing grades”. And that’s what they do in a lot of these schools now. They lower the passing grades so more kids can pass. More kids pass, the school looks good, everybody’s happy, the IQ of the country slips another two or three points and pretty soon all you’ll need to get into college is a fucking pencil. Got a pencil? Get the fuck in there, it’s physics. Then everyone wonders why 17 other countries graduate more scientists than we do. “EDUCAATION”. Politicians know that word. They USE it on you. Politicians have traditionally hidden behind three things, the flag, the Bible and children. “No child left behind. No child left behind.” Oh, really? Well, it wasn’t long ago you were talking about giving kids a head start. Head start. Left behind. Someone is losing fucking ground here.
But there’s a reason. There’s a reason. There’s a reason for this. There’s a reason that education sucks. And it’s the same reason that it will never ever. Ever be fixed. It’s never going to get any better. Don’t look for it. Be happy with what you got. BECAUSE THE OWNERS OF THIS COUNTRY DON’T WANT THAT. I’m talking about the real owners now. The real owners. The big, wealthy business interests that control things and make all the important decisions. Forget the politicians… they’re irrelevant. The politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice. YOU DON’T. YOU HAVE NO CHOICE. YOU HAVE OWNERS. THEY OWN YOU. THEY OWN *EVERYTHING*! They own all the important land. They own and control the corporations. They’ve long since bought and paid for the Senate, the Congress, the state houses, and city halls. They got the judges in their back pocket. And they own all the big media companies so they control just about all of the news and information you get to hear!
THEY’VE GOT YOU BY THE BALLS! They spend billions of dollars every year lobbying, lobbying to get what they want. Well, we know what they want. They want more for themselves and less for everybody else. But I’ll tell you what they don’t want. They don’t want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking. They don’t want well-informed. Well educated people capable of critical thinking. They’re not interested in that. That doesn’t help them. That’s against their interest. That’s right. They don’t want people who are smart enough to sit around the kitchen table and figure out how badly they’re getting fucked by a system that threw them overboard 30 fucking years ago. They don’t want that. You know what they want? They want OBEDIENT WORKERS. OBEDIENT WORKERS. People who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork and just dumb enough to passively accept all these increasingly shittier jobs with the lower pay, the longer hours, the reduced benefits. The end of overtime and the vanishing pension that disappears the minute you go to collect it.
And now, they’re coming for your SOCIAL SECURITY MONEY. They want your fucking retirement money. They want it back! So they can give it to their criminal friends on Wall Street! And you know something, they’ll get it… they’ll get it ALL from you sooner or later… because they own this fucking place! It’s a BIG CLUB…AND YOU AIN’T IN IT! You and I are not in the big club! By the way, it’s the same big club they use to beat you over the head with all day long when they tell you what to believe. All day long beating you over the head. And their media telling you what to believe, what to think and what to buy… The table is tilted. Folks. The game is rigged and nobody seems to notice. Nobody seems to care. Good. Honest. Hard- working people. White collar. Blue collar. It doesn’t matter what color shirt you have on.
Good, honest, hard-working people continue… these are people of modest means. Continue to elect these rich cocksuckers who don’t give a fuck about them. THEY DON’T GIVE A FUCK ABOUT YOU! THEY DON’T CARE ABOUT YOU. AT ALL. AT ALL. AT ALL! Yeah. You know. And nobody seems to notice. Nobody seems to care. That’s what the owners count on. The fact that Americans will probably remain willfully ignorant of the big red, white and blue dick that’s being jammed up their assholes every day. Because the owners of this country know the truth… It’s called the American dream. Because you have to be asleep to believe it.
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If George Carlin had lived longer he probably would’ve offed himself after seeing the stupidity of Covid.
Or someone would have offed him.
The man may be a bit crude but he’s right on the money. He was saying this stuff years before the deep state was belligerent enough to be open about their agenda.
In 2005 we all laughed at this because it was a bit of an exaggeration. Today it’s accepted as an understatement. Some even smugly wear the T-shirt.
People who were paying attention didn’t think it was an exaggeration.
If it makes you feel better, just as it’s turtles all the way down, so it’s ignoramuses all the way up.
In other words, most of the wealthy and powerful are also in the dark.
Only the supreme echelon know what’s really going on – and it ain’t pretty – it’s a dirty job, and they’ve got to do it.
I went to a Very Famous University back in the 60s, and briefly rubbed shoulders with some of the Best and Brightest, and their children (future governors, bankers and the like). Most of the powerful really aren’t that bright, but they do know a few things, and a few people, that help them out enormously.
As George his own self said, it’s a Big Club… and you ain’t in it.
You and I are not in the Big Club.
There is a more important club: The Cognoscenti.
With A LOT of research you can join it – albeit at the lower ranks.
I dig your style, man. But do you have to use so many cuss words?
Are you new?
That was the stranger’s question to the dude in “The Big Lebowski”.
Cultural Literacy is a wonderful thing.
The fuck you talking about?
Have it your way dude.
Best flick ever.
I have a collection of autographed sports heroes posters and one show biz celebrity: George Carlin. He has a special spot on my hero’s wall: Ayn Rand, Murray Rothbard, and George.
God I miss that man.
Never gets old.
Between George Carlin and Bill Hicks is where my take on the world falls thanks to listening to them over and over when I was in high school. Those two men were not comics. They were prophets with an insanely good analysis of the U.S. and the world in general.
They are rolling over in their graves for sure.
Don’t think so. They are laughing the asses off that we knew it was coming but did nothing and are stuck with it now.
It appears that there is a very slim stratum of people that understand and can make a cogent plan for the future. I would estimate that they are above average in intelligence, above average in income, good moral character and have an abundance of common sense. Like the layer of iridium, wide spread but a very thin layer.
Miss those guys too.